Britain's Ancient Tracks - Icneild Way

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening depending on when you are reading this.  I hope your summer finds you very well and that you are enjoying a good rest.  Tony continues his walking tour on the ancient tracks of Great Britain.  He is taking a walk on the Ickneild Way, a path that threads its way through East Anglia.  The run time for this episode is 46:18.

Today, Tony is traveling the Ickneild Way.  It is a word that has mysterious origins.  Was it the path that the Iceni took to celebrate their victories over the Romans?  Was it an old cow path?  Tony enjoys the mystery of this pathway.  It is one of Britain’s oldest roads and it consists of prehistoric pathways.  He is going to tour a mine, look for lay lines, and tour a mysterious cave.

Tony begins at the Norfolk Coast.  As he walks he only sees crops and trees, it seems that the Ickneild Way is hiding its secrets.  Eventually, he arrives at Grime’s Graves.  It was a place where the people thought the devil dwelled.  The moonscape landscape was the devil’s playground.  However, Tony says this was an important place in Britain.  How does Tony know this?  Of course, a good friend dug it.  Who is this good friend?  I am not going to reveal that!  They talk about the dig and go down into one of the prehistoric mines.  Tony goes into another world as he descends this mine.  How could prehistoric people dig this mine?  What tools would they have used?  How often would they have worked?  Tony learns about the process.  Again, I am reminded that our ancient ancestors were so much smarter than we are these days.

Tony eventually makes his way above ground and continues his walk on the Ickneild Way.  At one time the Ickneild Way could have been lost.  Tony arrives at Platform Two in Thetford.  However, Edward Thomas would change it.  He was a war poet and was on a journey.  It was on this journey he met a large man and asked him about the Icknield Way.  This large man had no idea what the Ickneild way was.  Thomas would change that and he walked his way throughout the Ickneild Way.  He published a book about the Icknield Way which helped people rediscover the pathway.  Matthew Hollis, Thomas’ biographer meets with Tony to learn more about Edward Thomas.

After this, Tony moves on and continues his walk on the Ickneild Way.  He crosses into Cambridgeshire and arrives at the Devil’s Dyke.  It is a massive ditch that stretches for miles.  The story goes that the Devil gatecrashed a wedding.  The locals threw him out and out of anger, the Devil carved the dyke with his tail on his way back to hell.  However, it was built by the Saxons to protect the Kingdom of East Angelia and to control the wool trade.  After taking in a sheep auction, Tony makes his way through Hayley’s Wood, an ancient wood in Britain.

He meets Sam Lee, a folk series to talk about how songs traveled throughout Britain.  Lee also talks about the plants that would have been found along the Ickneild Way.  The people would have eaten plants around the Ickneild Way.  Lee sings Tony off and Tony continues on his journey.  Eventually, he arrives at Royston and it is here that the Ickneild Way crosses a Roman Road.  It is here that a man-made cave was discovered with unique carvings.  Tony has never heard of this cave before and is impressed with the carvings that were discovered.  What was the function of this cave?  The mystery continues to this day.  What else does Tony learn about the Ickneild Way?  Tune into the rest of this episode to find out more.

I was happy to see that Timeline divided this episode into chapters which makes the episode easy to view and pull out clips for lectures.  I was delighted to see a familiar face, but you are going to have to watch the documentary to discover who this familiar face was.  I almost expected Mick to make an appearance out of the grave when Tony met up with a dowser.  This was a very interesting episode and one I would put on my list to show a geography class rather than a history class.